The Naked Truth (The Honeybrook Hamdens Book 1) (5 page)

“Yeah, he’s something.” Julie tried to smile, but had a gnawing suspicion that it looked more like bared teeth than anything else. “Hey, Mom, do you mind if I make a couple of phone calls? I’ll be back down in a while.”

“But I wanted to talk about your big success. I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned it.”

“Well…there’s been a lot going on. I promise I’ll tell you everything. Later.” She chewed on her bottom lip.

“Fine, but don’t leave anything out.”

“I won’t.” Julie bounced from the table so quickly that the plates in front of her clattered as she moved. Then, just as she scooted into the hallway, she turned around and added, “Oh, and Mom?”

Her mother’s head of greying curls moved in her direction.

“No chainsaws today, okay?”

After her mother nodded (and added a less-than-surreptitious eye roll), Julie sprinted up the stairs, grabbed her cell phone, and then popped a cigarette in her mouth.

Let the haggling begin.

Between doing everything in her power to clean the living room short of dousing it in gasoline and calling the whole operation a bust, Julie somehow managed to find the time to call everyone in her office--including the custodial staff.

Their response was unanimous. Not one of them was willing to help.

Rhonda, Jerome, Bethy--they all claimed mysterious, vague responsibilities far too pressing than the indie fashion show in two short weeks.

At her wit's end, she made a last ditch effort and called her former assistant yet again.

She didn't bother waiting for Trina to say a word. Instead, when the line clicked to life, she said, "Don't hang up."

"Julie." Trina's shaky voice sounded over the line.

In the twenty times Julie had called, the line somehow magically managed to go dead mid-sentence. If it happened this time, she was going to go to New York and check all the damned power lines herself.

"Don't say that. Say you're talking to someone else." She didn't know why she was whispering. Probably because the whole thing felt so covert. Either way, when Trina said, "But why--" Julie hissed back, "Just do it."

"Oh, I'm sorry Mrs. Melanoma. I thought you were someone else."

"Melanoma? Are you calling me a cancer?"

"I'm doing my best,” she hissed. “I was reading an article and..." There was a pause, and then Trina's lowered voice came over the line, "You really shouldn't be calling here."

"Make an excuse and go in my office."

"Of course. Let me see if I can find that for you. Please hold." Trina hummed softly into the phone and then after a tiny click she said, "We're all under threat of death if we talk to you."

"It can't be that bad."

"I'm telling you, Troy wants blood."

"But you know what he did--"

"It doesn't matter. You don't have any proof. Just come back, please. He'll give you back your job. You still have time."

"No." Julie huffed out her nose, then picked up a brush from the floor and scrubbed the hardwood with as much strength as she could muster.

After a long pause, Trina's voice came over the line again. "What can I do?"

"I need you to look for proof."

"I can't--"

"Listen, if I'm gone, they won't have need of you. I know I'm asking a lot but..." But what? Trina had no reason to help her. She was a young kid in a city she couldn't afford. Putting her job on the line would be lunacy. Beyond lunacy. It would be--

"What he did was wrong," Trina said.

"Yeah." The image of those perfect jackets rippled through her mind again. They were hers. Or, at least they had been.

"He came sniffing through your office yesterday. I think he was looking for more designs."

"Oh god did he--"

"I'd already hidden them. They're safe in my desk."

"Thank you, Trina. I owe you."

"You owe me to infinity. Because I
am
going to help you. But you're on your own with the fashion show."

"That I can handle." Julie sighed. "You're a good friend."

"And you're a good boss. I'm sorry to see you go."

"Yeah...me too." Julie clicked off of the line, then held her cell phone in the palm of her hand for a long moment. She was going to have to go through with the fashion show—including parading her own work on the runway and allowing someone else to take the credit.

It stung, but if Trina was successful…

No, she wouldn’t get her hopes up. She simply had to press on and try to get this thing together. In two weeks. With next to nothing and pretty much nobody invited.

There was only one solution left. One person with all the contacts, all the industry connections to get a job this big taken care of.

Julie let out a deep breath.

Okay. Here goes nothing.

I
t wasn’t weird
.

Definitely not. After all, people visited people when they were sick all the time. She’d even brought soup. And if Luke wasn’t with her, well, that wasn’t her fault, was it? She’d asked him to come, and he’d been busy.

She and Chase were friends, too. She could bring him soup if she wanted to.

She knocked on the door, wondering exactly how bad he’d look since he hadn’t been in school for a week. Maybe it was the flu. Considering he wasn’t answering any text messages, it might be something more serious. Whatever it was, she couldn’t picture him looking anything less than perfect.

The door swung open and Chase’s stepfather loomed in the doorway, tall and lean and tired-looking. His sallow face scrunched up as he took her in, then he said, “Whattaya want?”

“Is Chase here?” she asked, trying to keep the edge of hatred out of her voice.

The man gave a single nod and stepped aside, so Julie walked in and found him in the dingy living room, kneeling beside a woman whose skin looked as thin as tissue paper and as yellow as death. She glanced up at Julie with glassy eyes, and Chase’s gaze followed.

When Julie’s eyes met his, he didn’t smile.

She shouldn’t have come here. She knew that with mind-shattering clarity the second she saw his face.

“I brought soup,” was all she could manage, then she set it on the entryway table behind her and walked right back out the door.

Julie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and dialed the number she knew by heart.

This was the only choice she had left. Her last chance to get out of what might well be the worst disaster of her career. Or maybe the second worst. Or the third. It was getting harder and harder to keep track these days.

Still, as the dial tone buzzed against her ear she fidgeted with her necklace and pulled down her shirt like she was readying herself for a meeting back in the office.

Silently, she did her best to battle back the images of her last morning in the office. The way she'd been so innocent, so stupid, so naive the night she'd shown him her designs.

They'd been drinking. Not much, but enough for her to feel the light buzz in her head as she surveyed Troy over the top of her dessert.

"Your brother is a real genius," she'd said. "I can't wait until he visits the studio and--"

Troy had sniffed. "Eli will never visit us. We're a side office. The grunt labor force. The only reason he'd come to see us would be if something amazing was going to happen. If he caught wind of some kind of--"

"Breakout star?" It'd been hopeful thinking, even then, but Troy had nodded.

"Likely chance. No, he mostly keeps us around to wrangle the talent he has. I wouldn't get your hopes up."

She gripped her messenger bag tighter in her lap, then took a bite of her cake and chewed for a long, slow moment. She wasn't sure if it would be right to ask the next question on her mind. Troy was, after all, Eli's brother, and she didn't want him to think she only saw him that way. Over the past few months, she'd seen him as so much more.

The way he inspired the team to work harder, to dream bigger, was never less than magical.

Though, if what he was saying were true, maybe that had all been just a lie?

But no. Troy wouldn't lie. And if he did, he'd never lie to
her
. He'd told her as much. She was different. Special.

So she asked, even knowing that she shouldn't. "What if you saw something incredible? Could you tell him about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if you saw something that you thought might change things for all of us? Would you show it to Eli?"

"I'm not sure. I guess it would depend."

Slowly, she slipped the yellow notebook from her bag and slid it toward him.

And that's when she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.

Not that she'd known it at the time. Back them she'd just been pleased by the way his eyes shined as he took in the fine detailing she'd drawn into every seam of every jacket. The way his finger traced the cut and the fabric samples. Like he'd just received the biggest gift of his lifetime.

Which, of course, he had.

The phone clicked off and she blew a sigh through her nose before picking up her mother's phone and trying the line again.

She blinked as the buzz began again and the memories drifted back. The way he'd been so much sweeter to her after that night, dropping by her office to give her lunch or just to say hello. The way he'd asked how her designs were coming.

And then the morning when he'd swung by to let her know that Eli was coming to the office after all. He'd be holding a conference for his brother and the entire office was going to welcome him. Troy had said he wanted her at his side.

So she had been. That morning, when Eli Wilcox strode into the little Brooklyn offshoot of Wilcox designs, she'd stood tall in her best home-sewn dress and shook his hand, all the while beaming from one brother to the other and never knowing that a bus was about to roll right over her.

It had been a quiet enough affair, and when the brothers had slipped off to be alone, she'd gone back to her office and beamed, wondering if Eli might stop by to see her work. If he might look at it the way Troy had and be blown away.

The thought alone was enough to have her reaching for her messenger bag, flinging open the cover, and then...

Staring down into the empty canvas.

Her book was gone.

She'd called Trina in to see if she'd noticed where it might have gone to, or if her red book was around, but Trina only shook her head. She said the last time she noticed anything in the office was when she went to get a set of keys for Troy.

"Troy," Julie had repeated and then--

"Hello, Troy Wilcox's office, how may I help you?" A cool female voice sounded over the line and Julie focused hard on making her voice high and breathy before speaking again.

"Hi there, this is Jessica from the modeling interview. I wanted to speak with Mr. Wilcox about--"

"Don't you have an agent who can call on your behalf? Mr. Wilcox is a very busy man--"

"He asked me to, um, call
personally
." She hated herself for adding to her suspicions, but her stomach dropped when the other woman answered back knowingly.

"I see. Please stay on the line while I connect you."

That stealing, cheating, two-timing son of a b--

"Hello, Troy Wilcox. How can I help you?" He was using his smarmiest business tone and Julie gripped the inside of her palm, trying her best not to picture how satisfying it might be to smack the smug look right off his face.

"Troy," she said.

He hurried to answer back, "I think you have the wrong--"

"I'm positive I don't. I saw the paper this morning."

"You did." It wasn't a question.

"When did you plan on dropping this massive bomb on me?"

"I don't know what you're--"

"Come off it."

“Look, Julie, you had to know I couldn’t just let you walk out like that.” He sighed. “You’ve got to come back and this was the only way—“

“Come back so you can get the final details on my designs?” She wanted to spit, to stamp her foot, to do anything at all to convey what a  piece of slime he really was.

“I talked to Eli. He’s willing to promote you if this show goes well.”

“You can’t promote someone who doesn’t work for you.”

Troy sighed again. “Do you really want to do this?”

“It seems like you’ve left me no choice.”

“Fine. Here’s the deal. Nobody is going to believe the designs are yours. You know it and I know it. So, you can either make a name for yourself by throwing one hell of a show—“

“In a week?”

“Or you can make yourself the laughing stock of the industry. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck what you choose.”

“I—I—“ Julie longed for the days when she could slam the phone onto the hook and glare at it angrily. Instead, she slid her thumb across the screen, gritted her teeth, then tossed the thing onto the bed where it promptly bounced up and slammed against the wall.

Perfect.

She winced, hoping it hadn't cracked, but decided the last thing she needed to do was check on that particular problem right now. She had way more massive fish to fry. Like, for instance, setting up the event of the century in two week's time with no help and no hope of anyone realizing that the work being displayed was actually her own. She sucked in her cheeks, then glanced out the window at her mother who was digging around in the rainforest of a garden outside.

Julie closed her eyes, hung her head, and thought hard. Maybe she just needed some time to process. She could go outside, help her mother, and by the time dinner rolled around, some magic solution might appear. Yes, time was the answer. Pulling on a jacket, she flounced out of her room and tried to fix her expression to one of happy determination before trudging down the steps. Just as she reached the landing, though, the front door swung open and Luke walked in...with Chase Westmore in tow.

Today Chase had given up his button down shirt in favor of a worn Nirvana tee she could have sworn he used to wear in high school. Of course, back then it had hung loosely on his lean frame. Now, it stretched across his muscled shoulders and torso like it might burst at the seams at any moment. His jeans, too, looked well worn, and when her gaze fell on his face, he looked just as shocked to see her as she was to see him.

Still, remembering that Luke was there, she beamed at her brother and said, "Well look what the cat dragged in."

Luke rushed toward her and took her in his arms, swinging her around the foyer before setting her back down on her feet.

"What was that about?" She laughed.

"My baby sister is a celebrity. I saw the paper this morning. I'm so proud of you."

"Oh yeah." She blushed, and then stared down at the scarred wooden floorboards. "That."

"You weren't going to tell us about your big show?"

"I was. In time." She let out a deep breath, and then said, "Anyway, what brings you guys here? I thought you'd be busy with the bar all week."

"Mom called me over this morning. She wants to get started on the dining room, but she needs me to unstick the cabinets on the built-in." Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "So I brought the best carpenter I know." He nodded toward Chase, who still stood silent in the doorway.

"Quite a job," she said, and then leaned forward to see the massive archway into the dining room. Apparently, her mother and Amy had gotten to work early this morning because there was a neat little path already forged to the 1920's style oak buffet. Back in the house's prime, that piece had been the star of the place, a perfect view from the bay window on the other side of the room. At Christmas, their grandmother used to dress it up with twinkle lights and a nativity. And once, back before everything had gone sour, she and Chase had opened one of the cabinets and...

She shook her head.

"Well, I'll leave you boys to--" She started, and then she heard the whirr of a chainsaw starting up and placed one steadying hand on her brow.

"Oh no," Luke said, and then sprinted past her, down the hall, and through the kitchen, until Julie heard the snap of the back door closing.

All the while, she could feel the weight of Chase's gaze on her, appraising her.

"Mom is trying her hand at the chainsaw again." She explained at last, but rather than the exasperation she should have felt, she was overwhelmed by a sudden rush of rage. Like everything she'd been holding in--the disappointment from work, the anxiety of keeping her secret, the shame, the regret, and the sheer unfairness of life--had come over her all at once and as she met Chase's gaze it all came pouring out.

"I told you to stay away from me," she hissed, and then checked behind her to make sure Luke or Amy hadn't suddenly re-entered the room.

"What was I supposed to do? Tell your brother I wouldn't help him? Face it, you may not want to see me, but this family means as much to me as it does to you, and I can't just give it up because--"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm just here to help. You can hate me all you want, but you don't get to pick and choose where I go. I'm still Luke's best friend and--"

"Oh, you don't have to remind me of
that
." She glared at him.

Chase tilted his head to the side, looking her up and down, and when he spoke again his words were measured. "You didn't know a damn thing about that fashion show."

"What?" She was so taken aback that for a moment she forgot to seethe.

"You told me last night that you weren't going back to the city for another two months."

"I forgot," she stammered. "You know me--"

"You can pull that fuck-up shit on your family, but you can't do that to me. You didn't know a damn thing about it. So what gives? What's going on?"

"Even if there was something going on, what makes you think I'd even consider telling you?"

"So I don't mention it to your brother."

"You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?" He stalked from the room toward the buffet and Julie stared after him for a moment before following, her mouth hanging open in shock.